Based on interview material with a wide range of Protestant clergy in Northern Ireland, this book examines how Protestant identity impacts on the possibility of peace and stability and argues for greater involvement by the Protestant churches in the transition from conflict to a 'post-conflict' Northern Ireland.

When conflict, competing identities, and segregation collide; Identity, Segregation and Peace-building in Northern Ireland explores the implications for peace-building in Northern Ireland, and across the globe.

The ratification of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 was the culmination of a lengthy and contentious peace process that involved the efforts of a committed team of political actors. In 2001, Marianne Elliott brought together a collection of essays by many of these pivotal figures in The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland, an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and politicians. Now Elliott, one of the most prominent chroniclers of Irish history, presents a fully updated edition with new essays commissioned to explore the events of the past five years. A period that saw successes such as the decommissioning of the Provisional IRA but also a rise in drug trafficking and organized crime, as a generation of men who have done nothing other than serve as paramilitaries are now finding their skills most valued as criminals. With contributions from U.S. Senator George J. Mitchell, Sir David Goodall, Jan Egeland, Lord Owen, and Peter Mandelsohn, the second edition of The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland is an illuminating record of the ongoing peace process—and its consequences—told by the people directly involved in its evolution.

Consociational power sharing is often perceived to be the method of conflict management that is most likely to succeed in deeply divided societies. The case of Northern Ireland in particular is heralded by many as a consociational success story. Since the signing of the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in 1998, significant conflict transformation has taken place in the form of a considerable reduction in levels of violence and the establishment of power sharing between unionists and nationalists. This book looks at what consociational power sharing achieves after its implementation – specifically, whether it can work to overcome existing identities in divided societies, or whether it simply freezes divisions. It argues that if consociational power sharing is facilitating a move towards a genuinely shared society, this would be demonstrated in the focus of the election campaigns of Northern Ireland’s political parties, which would be almost exclusively based around socio-economic issues affecting the whole population, rather than narrow single identity concerns. However, the book claims that, on the whole, this has not been realised. Although election campaigns are today less strident than they were in the pre-1998 era, it remains the case that they usually foreground single identity symbolism, as it is this that resonates with voters. Whilst consociational power sharing has been very successful in reducing levels of violent conflict and facilitating elite level cooperation between unionists and nationalists, it has been much less successful in reducing divisions within wider society to facilitate a genuinely shared Northern Irish identity. By establishing an important middle ground between consociational proponents and critics, this research will be of significant interest to students and scholars of ethnic politics, political sociology, conflict management, and divided societies more generally.

This study explores the idea voiced by journalist Henry McDonald that the Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist tribes of Ulster are '...the least fashionable community in Western Europe'. A cast of contributors including prominent politicians, academics, journalists and artists explore the reasons informing public perceptions attached to this community.

This book examines the complex role identity and religion play in global peace processes. Based on multiple case studies, this book unveils the complex role identity and religion play in peace processes across the globe. It demonstrates that the success and sustainability of a peace process depends on the systemic application of the BRIDGE model that is introduced here. This model describes five major strategies (Bonding, Reassuring, Involving, Determining Guides, and Equalizing) and numerous tactics for how peace processes and accords can deal with the central issues as well as important common challenges that run through identity-based ethnonational or religious conflicts. This represents the first comprehensive account of how the transition from enemies to neighbors is achieved and how intergroup relations and engagement are transformed in peace processes, impacting power, access to resources, legitimacy, and representation in national identity. The model also discusses what forms of peacebuilding authentically represent the interests, needs, and values of religious constituencies, and what can be learned from how religious constituencies escalate and de-escalate conflict. The book demonstrates why religion must also be included in peace processes and permanent solutions, owing to religion’s capacity to enhance commitment to bonding and peaceful values, such as justice, compassion, nonviolence, stability, care for children, and care for the environment, for the sick, the wounded, the traumatized, and the bereaved. This book will be of much interest to students of peace studies, intra-state conflict, religion studies, and International Relations.

This volume brings together perspectives on social identity and peace psychology to explore the role that categorization plays in both conflict and peace-building. To do so, it draws leading scholars from across the world in a comprehensive exploration of social identity theory and its application to some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as intrastate conflict, uprising in the middle east, the refugee crisis, global warming, racism and peace building. A crucial theme of the volume is that social identity theory affects all of us, no matter whether we are currently in a state of conflict or one further along in the peace process. The volume is organized into two sections. Section 1 focuses on the development of social identity theory. Grounded in the pioneering work of Dr. Henri Tajfel, section 1 provides the reader with a historical background of the theory, as well as its current developments. Then, section 2 brings together a series of country case studies focusing on issues of identity across five continents. This section enables cross-cultural comparisons in terms of methodology and findings, and encourages the reader to identify general applications of identity to the understanding of peace as well as applications that may be more relevant in specific contexts. Taken together, these two sections provide a contemporary and diverse account of the state of social identity research in conflict situations and peace psychology today. It is evident that any account of peace requires an intricate understanding of identity both as a cause and consequence of conflict, as well as a potential resource to be harnessed in the promotion and maintenance of peace. Understanding Peace and Conflict Through Social Identity Theory: Contemporary Global Perspectives aims to help achieve such an understanding and as such is a valuable resource to those studying peace and conflict, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, public policy makers, and all those interested in the ways in which social identity impacts our world.

This edited volume brings together a series of contributions exploring the socio-cultural and psychological representation of peace and conflict. It ventures into areas of the humanities and social sciences not typically foregrounded in Peace Studies, such psychology, sociology, media studies, cultural studies, history, and geography.

This edited volume offers useful resources for researchers conducting fieldwork in various global conflict contexts, bringing together a range of international voices to relay important methodological challenges and opportunities from their experiences. The book provides an extensive account of how people do conflict research in difficult contexts, critically evaluating what it means to do research in the field and what the role of the researcher is in that context. Among the topics discussed: Conceptualizing the interpreter in field interviews in post-conflict settings Data collection with indigenous people Challenges to implementation of social psychological interventions Researching children and young people’s identity and social attitudes Insider and outsider dynamics when doing research in difficult contexts Working with practitioners and local organizations Researching Peace, Conflict, and Power in the Field is a valuable guide for students and scholars interested in conflict research, social psychologists, and peace psychologists engaged in conflict-related fieldwork.

Inequality, Identity, and the Politics of Northern Ireland examines how the politics of threat and resentment, undergirded by persistent poverty and class and gender inequalities across Catholic and Protestant communities, shape dynamics of political conflict, while simultaneously giving way to critical subjectivities at the community level through which more transformative visions of “peace” may emerge.